Roy Jacobsen

Roy Jacobsen (born 26 December 1954) is a Norwegian novelist and short-story writer.

Born in Oslo, he made his publishing début in 1982 with the short-story collection Fangeliv (Prison Life), which won Tarjei Vesaas' debutantpris.

Jacobsen grew up in a suburb of Oslo located in the Groruddalen valley.

He was subsequently convicted of among other things weapons offences and theft, and given a six-month suspended sentence.

From 1979 to 1986 he lived at his mother's homestead at Solfjellsjøen in Dønna Municipality in the northern Norwegian county of Nordland, and both the background of his mother as well as his upbringing in Groruddalen were central themes of his breakthrough novel Seierherrene from 1991.